Broker

A broker is an individual or party (brokerage firm) that arranges transactions between a buyer and a seller for a commission when the deal is executed. A broker who also acts as a seller or as a buyer becomes a principal party to the deal. Distinguish agent—one who acts on behalf of a principal.

Definition

A broker is an independent agent used extensively in some industries. A broker's prime responsibility is to bring sellers and buyers together and thus a broker is the third-person facilitator between a buyer and a seller. An example would be a real estate broker who facilitates the sale of a property.

Brokers also can furnish market information regarding prices, products, and market conditions. Brokers may represent either the seller (90% of the time) or the buyer (10%) but not both at the same time. An example would be a stockbroker, who makes the sale or purchase of securities on behalf of his client. Brokers play a huge role in the sale of stocks, bonds, and other financial services.

A service is a self-contained unit of functionality, such as retrieving an online bank statement. By that definition, a service is an operation that may be discretely invoked. However, in the Web Services Description Language (WSDL), a service is an interface definition that may list several discrete services/operations. And elsewhere, the term service is used for a component that is encapsulated behind an interface. This widespread ambiguity is reflected in what follows.

Services can be combined to provide the functionality of a large software application. SOA makes it easier for software components on computers connected over a network to cooperate. Every computer can run any number of services, and each service is built in a way that ensures that the service can exchange information with any other service in the network without human interaction and without the need to make changes to the underlying program itself.

Broker

A broker is an individual or party (brokerage firm) that arranges transactions between a buyer and a seller for a commission when the deal is executed. A broker who also acts as a seller or as a buyer becomes a principal party to the deal. Distinguish agent—one who acts on behalf of a principal.

Definition

A broker is an independent agent used extensively in some industries. A broker's prime responsibility is to bring sellers and buyers together and thus a broker is the third-person facilitator between a buyer and a seller. An example would be a real estate broker who facilitates the sale of a property.

Brokers also can furnish market information regarding prices, products, and market conditions. Brokers may represent either the seller (90% of the time) or the buyer (10%) but not both at the same time. An example would be a stockbroker, who makes the sale or purchase of securities on behalf of his client. Brokers play a huge role in the sale of stocks, bonds, and other financial services.